identifiler

Well, recently was a couple of months and I see the menu has changed. The foie gras I had came with respectable onion and port marmelade, that was quite good actually. The tombinambour potage was on and that was realy good also, extremely rich (the one I had at Chevres was better). I had the beef as main and everything looked fine except the medium rare I got was served as what I describe as american medium (ie, overcooked) instead of the requested medium rare. Again, nothing major. But when taking into account that it was very bad weather that evening and the place wasn't packed at all, I think the kitchen should be even better in such time. When we realised how cold the service was and that every patrons left, we decided to act as if we would make our own atmosphere in the place, and turned it inside out, making fun of the pretentious looks we got... I don't have a lot of respect this kind of treatment and I hope we shocked them as much as they did. At the end of the evening, we bullied our fun on them, we left smiling and they didn't... I hope it's a lesson but they seemed to basically write us off anyways. It wasn't as if it was bad service, it just seemed that we started off getting the cold shoulder from the get go, worst was that we didn't even hold back on expenses... I really didn't expect this kind of atmosphere in the gay getto. When we got a description of stuff of the menu, it was declined quite coldly, as if we weren't worthy of the food. When we left, I felt like walking out of a morgue. I really think this place has tons of talent in the kitchen. I believe if Perreault had twice the space in the room (to bring a bit more volume to the menu) and got a more cheerfull team, he would be really shinning. Also, the kitchy looks of the space as seen it's days now. Still nice but definitely needs something fresh.

Lesley, I read your review this week. I was at Area recently. I also found that the menu description to be a bit off the top compared to the plate. I still think he has one of the best duck ravioli. I had the foie gras and was pleased but not blown away. However, I can certainly appreciate the review of the service. They have zero communication skills, not a smile, not a feeling. It is if they are all asexual or something... cold,cold,cold. They had no problem of execution but they never said one word, even when I tried to break to ice, the girl looked at me as if I was a total dumbass (yet they didn't seem to be to silent when ganging up behind the bar describing their patrons...), that vibe as nothing to do with Perreault...

true, certainly that's the vibe. I knew Picard teaches at the cooking school and hopefully this is the extend of the relationship. As long as they don't get into the plates and wine list, I'm happy. I'm just slowly getting a bite tired of seeing them on Distasio...

I'm due for a fall get together at PDC, we are waiting for a cold evening to go. I'm concerned about the review as this is one of my favorite place. I have however seen some service issues in the past, nothing really serious but untimely serving that seems to be caused by the kitchen logistics itself. The Dante sister thing is not welcomed, surely someone has to pay for that pile of hundreds of all clad above the fireplace. But the Dante sisters have nothing to do with good logistics and service, they're a bit rough around the corners if you know what I mean. Nothing wrong with them, but I don't see any bonus point on the side of sophistication...

per capita, Laval is one of the highest level of consumption in Canada. Good small Italian and Greek community too. Customers form Laval sur le Lac have fat wallets. Derriere les fagots is an amazing choice for price vs food quality. I'm inetrested in the concept, the only Al gladiatore I know is across the street from the Colisseum in Rome. Is this roman food, are we going to get trippa and rosted pigeons ? I don't think I have ever seen trippa on a Montreal menu.

Master, click on Lesley's name on the left of her comments. That will enable you to send her a PM or Private Message. Just like an e-mail. Good luck with the new restaurant. I certainly know a couple of Laval friends who will be happy to know about this.

I think... the cat is out of the bag...

Wow Vivre Manger ! Great description. Hamel always has some great offers. The are some amazing small one too. There's a great little store in St-Lambert with some excelent local cheese. Le Fromentier is a must. It's been around for quite a while now. A stop at Queue de Cochon for a Toulouse is another great stop in the area. I also suggest getting a feta omelette at BYBLOS and have some rose jelly and tea pudding... very good breakfast before heading out to the market. I cannot believe that they still have the same names, selections than in the begining ! When that place started, we really thaught these folks were in a religious sect. They were doing everything with the least mechanical use. Tons of folks working all the time... day and night. Flour all over the place. I've noticed the bread choices getting very hot in some restaurants in Montréal. I wouldn't be suprise if Fromentier supplied them. Le foglia fouré... LOL, you must absolutely read the man. He fancies jam of mirabelles.

You basically have to know the reviewer. I find it similar to music reviews. They are really 3 matrix to consider a restaurant, actually 4. The star system, the cost of food, the ambience filter (BYOW, sandwich spot, type of food, restaurant de quartier, urban chic, etc.. ) and finally the text itself. I would rather see stars than none. I always read Kayler's review in LaPresse, of course I know that she is a conservative old lady and that she is not very warm to restaurants with a DJ. That is expected. However, she really masters the description of the plate, rarley speak about anything outside the plate. Different styles I guess. When I started reading her, I could never understand if it was a good or bad restaurant she reviewed...

Carswell, you make a very good point. As a microbiologist, it makes a lot of sense to me. I have used it for very hard cheeses such as regiano. When I open a seal, i never re seal it. It's just for transport and short term. Reguardless if sporulating microbes can survive without a lot of oxygen, it really is playing with fire to alter the process of caseine breakdown.

It shouldn't, however, I caution you to vacuum seal a very soft triple cream cheese... Food saver... I love that thing, gets me organic raspberry shakes every morning of winter !

Then Atwater market is the closest shopping point. When I was in Italy, most dried meats, cheeses and others were personnaly vacuum packed for travel. Maybe Atwater can do this for you, still bring some ziplock because handling cheese will leave some traces on the plastic seal. If you are flying towards Reagan National Washington, prepare for a total disclosure (they will search every single inch of yourslef and your luggage in a separate room anyways). This is only for flights going to Wash.

Ya what's up with those foamy sauces.... Seriously, to me that makes a lot of sense. Wow, looks like I am marking one down right now. Where is it ?

Lesley is right... most places suck at breakfast reguardless. Just head on out to the Passe Partout bakery, get the liver going with some croissants... You simply need a nice fresh market fruit, a quality latte and bottle water, lots... If we take the heard out to breakfast, we'll usually head out to Exrpress. Other than that, it's bread, jam and croissant galore. I had a breakfast this week end of 4 adults and 4 cookie monsters, 18 croissants (Vieux Longueil, rated best in Montreal), 4 baguettes, lots of ham, lots of homemade rillette de canard and crotons... It was on the table faster than any fast food joint. Home made rillettes and butter croissants= beats any greasy spoon stuff by a mile.

It is ironic that it is indead sushi express that brought the house down. It was not well managed. The CEO spoke this week in the papers. I'm pretty happy he honestly said he didn't know what he was doing and lost control, it really happened when he started going corporate, you could almost smell an IPO coming... get real...

Does anyone know if Picard has gone to his late summer menu with salt marsh lamb, more oysters and more fish ? I am going back with a bunch of friends and would hate to miss this by a week or so.

I drive many miles to pick up Kaizen take out. Not from that take out menu but from the regular menu. I've been pretty well served in the past. TRee is a super nice guy and I see him unloading filet's on tuesday during lunch time... But I can certainly agree about the wacky thing, both owner, manager and sometimes patrons can be really flaky sometimes. Last time at tre house, we had amazing company, on one side, meet the deutchlander who has invested heavily in his wife new found shape at the tender age of 65 and can't stop yelling in his cell phone with his mouth full. On the other side, meet Mario, who decided to take out a hooker for the first time and can't stop saying " Come on Ginette, tu veux du sushi, ben manges-en maudit !" in front of a 60 piece boat for one guy who hates it and one hooker wo could hardly fit 10 pieces... At least tri noticed and one of little leather boots girl to change us from the table to the sushi bar where he dumps a daily creation in front of us to enjoy for free. I tell you wacky is a good word for that place, and sometimes,there tempura batter oil should be refreshed sooner... See it anyway you want, it's better than sotto.

This is my third time at Brunoise, not certain if the menu has seen a new twist since my vacation but I can confirm that every single night there, we have tasted different stuff and in different environements (large party, small party, rush to concert) and it has been solid, solid solid all around in all aspects, but please, let's keep it our little secret, hype can be such a bummer some times.

Roth, Sirois, Scraire and Monty... throw them parasites in prison and loose the key... But to stay on topic, it is quite interesting that they purchased Mount Stephen... I might actually approuve of that since the landmark wasn't finding any buyers.

If farmed salmon as literaly taken over as the offering in markets and even specialised markets, my gut feeling is that the can market was there years ago... Anyone knows where 95% of the Atlantic Salmon comes from ? Fish farms in Chili, they fly them in Miami every 24 hours, from there all the way to Montreal. Anyone knows where most of the Canadian Atlantic salmon comes from ? BC, that's right, Atlantic Salmon grown in the inlets. I would have to say that salmon is probably one of the product that has gone down in quality with years of commercialisation. The fish feed is very questionnable (if you ever wondered about those carne flower fed cows...), the infection rates due to overpopulation is constant and a sunbject of intense research, vaccin injections... The feed must contain a naturally or non naturally red dye pigment because the harvested salmon do not have access to it's regular diet of krill, shrimp or larvea, so they add the coloring for looks. Last time I got a salmon filet, it was a special order at Atwater to get wild salmon, it came from Alaska. Alaska is one of the largest producer of wild salmon, the price was pretty obscene, the difference was obvious. Here are some info on the practice in general: http://www.organicconsumers.org/Toxic/fish...farm_salmon.cfm Here is the report of last year's disaster. Unfortunately, the pictures of a large blender boat pumping up 1,000,000 small salmon and chopping it up in fine particules to go dump it away from the coast have been removed. It smelled pretty bad in the inlets last year. http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/stor...80651_20308180/

You think ? Jean Claude Scraire and his diva from Shawn should be in prison as we talk, but that's another story. What a joke = http://www.jeanclaudescraire.com/

Me too Vivre, I am leaving for jardin de Metis next week, then over to tadoussac, then back. But before, I must face the reality of Washington DC and it's lobbyist. Especially looking forward to stops made in specialty shops/growers/producers.

Vivre manger, Yes, Mr. Daigneault is a producer for local restaurants. His market was developped directly in retsaurants (notably at Toque, but also at brunoise and others). Laprise is the chef at Toque and has recently introduced a new producer on the web site of his restaurant. I think we have entered the third step of market (originally producers just bulked and ropped everything at the central market where purchasers just bought what cam through, then a few specialised growers got recognition and demand for very specific items and make them available at market, and now it seems they may only produce for a small number of restaurants, therefore a very close relationship). Markets are mostly populated with distributors, some of them have the respect of offering low price but also personnaly picking the produce, and so even if it's the same cucumber offered, the guy at Jean Talon picked the nicest lot, while the guy at IGA just entered the required stock in a computer. Some distributors also offer special products with pride such as Chez Louis. And finally, a few of the stalls are actual producers. Reguarding the major chains. Well, there is one precise answer for you: If the supermarket is corporated owned, it's only going to offer good prices on toilet paper and nothing else much. If it is privately owned, you can expect a very nice tailored system. Examples of that are IGA Lambert in st bruno or IGA Louise Menard in Nun's island, St-Lambert and Guy Favreau complex. I know all these managers will have a product if you ask him to buy it and keep it. For example in St-Bruno, the organic section is really good, we also ask him to stock on all the high end dairy, he always stocks it well. Marche Plouffe is perhaps one of the best example of that, it could be any banner, in this case a metro. But Plouffe has Magog all over it, it's the supermarket with the general store vibe. He takes a lot of pride in having local Highland Meat, and tons of other products. When these folks are on the floor, the place is usually top shape... My father lives close, that's why I know the place (we stay away from downtown Magog like it was the plague there...) I'm not necessarily interested in even small volumes but more in growing some very rare varieties of vegetables and release them as fresh as possible. I'm just curious to find out just how high someone would pay for a very rare tomatoe. I mean, if my kitchen is full of this stuff, how come it's still so uncommon in restaurants and markets. Other than miniature zuchinis, mesclun, bleue potato and black radishes, there's still quite a void that could be offered.

Mmmm That reminds me, I read somewhere that Tuesday and Thursday nights are the real nights to check out a restaurant since most of them get their grocey in that day... Is that true ? I think I read it in the naked chef, who also said friday and saturday customers are usually loosers...

This may completely off topic... I hope everyone is reviewing what they see in there plates "vegetable" wise since we should all see local produce starting to flow in. Of course, to the exception of producers with green houses. Salads should be absolutely fresh, crisp and not to thick. The last heat wave has pushed many varieties to start flowering. Red, Radicio, frisee and certainly rocquette should be standard. I have noticed in groceries just how gross some of the salads are (especially the california stuff). Also showing up for quite a while are rapinis, all beans, sugar snap, (Carouby beans, flageollet not still showing in outside grow). At this point, season is more than perfect for a good production of tomatoes, melons. Zuchini flowers and vegetables are peeking right now. Look for those tempura dipped zuchini flowers ! Strawberries of course, the early rainy season has created stunting and drop of flower, production is much lower but still managed to get two crates of organic beauties (at a price). All that said, my question goes to restaurant owners who relie on some local producers for finer products that are unique. Do you see your producers making a good living by farming standard. The high end specialists with heated green houses, organic culture, specialised in rare or heirloom varieties, are these folks seeing growth in their market ? In the mass market there is a 25% growth yearly in organic production and the trend seems to be fairly solid (I am of course refering to organic not in the religious, flaky kind of way). However, one could always argue that these increase in production mainly come from giants in California who sac millions of baby carrots and thick mesclun, or milk producers who are at the mercy of two or three buyers, or farmers that are suddenly being madated by Loblaws to offer the cheapest, highest volume of tomatoes to make ketchup under the president choice label.... I'm talking more about outfits like Mr. Daigneault. Or the example that Laprise gives on his website of this lady who gave up office to make a small plot of production for a few customers. I don't see myself farming intensively, but I could see some birds and some very rare vegetables. Can the chef here comment on those low volume high end producers. I'm thinking about buying a gentlemen farm in the Pinaccle or dunham area in the next year or so.